McGlynn’s apology over Goodwillie doesn’t wash and can’t change the fact heads must roll at Rovers

JOHN McGLYNN no doubt feels that some steps, at least, have been taken towards building bridges after coming out — a week too late — and issuing an apology for Raith Rovers’ hurtful, damaging and costly move for David Goodwillie.

The truth is, though, that it doesn’t wash. It simply doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

How on earth can anyone inside Raith say, in all honesty, that they didn’t understand the potential for this train crash down the line when they first opened talks to bring in Goodwillie from Clyde? That the outrage and anger from fans, employees, politicians and even some of their own directors has all been some kind of terrible surprise.

What planet have they been living on if they really believed there had never been any major reaction to him signing at Broadwood in March 2017, shortly after a civil court had ruled he had raped Denise Clair six years earlier?

Just do a Google search, for crying out loud. When that deal went through, one prominent MSP stopped attending their games, pressure groups spoke out, the Cumbernauld-based club defended themselves as ‘a socially responsible employer’ committed to ‘rebuilding lives and careers, especially so after mistakes’.

More than a year after the transfer, their chairman at the time, Norrie Innes, spoke out again in defence of the striker and made specific mention of the way the wider footballing community had reacted to him. ‘He is subjected to things on the park and off the park that rapists in jail are not subjected to,’ insisted Innes, perhaps a little inadvisedly.

It was clear Clyde were going to support Goodwillie come hell or high water. Debatable as their A position may have been, they set their stall out and stuck to it. FTER five years there, maybe the chants from the opposition stands had died down. Maybe they were no longer having the desired effect. However, this widely expressed view that nobody bothered about Goodwillie being back in football until Rovers tried to sign him is nonsense.

McGlynn, a manager who evidently put Goodwillie’s goalscoring record above other considerations, kind of bought into that, too, when stating that he had never encountered any negativity towards him and that ‘David was playing football up until the end of January and there was nothing said’.

McGlynn has a good reputation inside the game. Yet, those are the words of someone either out of touch or being wilfully ignorant. And neither is good for someone operating as the frontman of an organisation that regards itself as a representative part of its local community.

Still, at least he did put his head above the parapet and be that frontman when addressing questions on Thursday. Where is the chairman John Sim in all this? Or the CEO Karen Macartney? Or the other directors who ploughed on regardless and then lost their nerve? Still hiding under the boardroom table, by the looks of things.

Contrary to much of the past week’s debate, driven by flawed and needless interventions from First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and the likes of Hannah Bardell MP, this is not so much a matter of whether Goodwillie should play football again or not.

Goodwillie is a 32-year-old man with a family. Whatever you think of him, he needs to make a living somehow. That’s how our society works. Football is his trade and he is entitled to look for work in that sphere if he can find an employer willing to take his past into account and give him another chance.

He thought he had found one. And then Rovers capitulated against the inevitable backlash, now finding themselves with no main sponsor, their reputation trashed, mass resignations to contend with, their women’s team playing under a different name and negotiations ongoing over how they get out of a contract signed with a player who they have suddenly decided is never going to play.

All brought on by themselves. And such a catastrophic event that it cannot be explained away with the excuse that they didn’t notice the asteroid heading in their direction.

They were warned. That’s the thing. It was made absolutely clear to them — even from people inside the tent — that there was a sizeable section of their fanbase opposed to

Goodwillie joining. They just didn’t listen.

Andy Mill, a supporter-director, voted against it and argued his case alongside former chairman Bill Clark. When they lost, they left in disgust.

Rovers’ sponsor Val McDermid, the best-selling author, tweeted her opposition to the possibility of Goodwillie arriving in early January — revealing that ‘90 per cent of responses’ were supportive and that people were talking about tearing up season tickets even then — and spoke again the weekend before the transfer was announced to reiterate that it would send out all the wrong messages.

She has since alleged that a director also lied to her about the signing — just days before it happened. In the initial Rovers statement defending their decision to bring in the player, the club admitted that they knew the transfer had ‘divided opinion’, that they had ‘carefully considered’ their position in the face of those differing views.

Of course McDermid was going to withdraw her backing after all that. Of course her global profile was going to lead to a pile-on. Of course it was going to become a massive issue. The moment the word came through on transfer deadline night that Raith had actually gone and done it, it was M obvious to everyone that we had a firestorm in the making. AYBE it hasn’t made it through to Kirkcaldy, but there has been a drive ongoing for some time now to engage women in football, promote their involvement at all levels and build the profile of the women’s game as a product in its own right.

In wider society, equality, gender issues and sexual politics are more visible in public debate than they have been in years. Cases such as the murder of Sarah Everard last year have placed brutality against women — and issues surrounding their safety — high in the public consciousness.

To think that signing David Goodwillie in a bid to win promotion would slip under the radar against that cultural backdrop is just stupidity in the extreme.

It’s why McGlynn and his board cannot escape this. You need to be able to see round corners in this game, to read the room. If you have been told what’s coming and steam on regardless, you need to do what Clyde did — take a position, construct an argument, no matter how ill-conceived or contentious it may seem, and stand firm.

Given the climbdown of the past week, Rovers just look like an organisation full of folk who don’t really know what they are doing with a pretty weak grasp on either reality or the truth.

McGlynn must be taken at his word when he says that they are not bad people. That’s fine. They are the wrong type of people to be running a football club that aspires to be connected to its community, though, and that is why, no matter how many times he is pushed out front to say sorry, they still have to go.